As the festive season and end of the year approaches, we proudly present to you this very last newsletter of 2017 which summarizes the latest member news, interesting events and our upcoming projects in China.

2017 is undoubtedly an extraordinary year to witness the quickening pace of the rapproachment between Switzerland and China, kicking off with the state visit of China’s President Mr. Xi Jinping in January, spending the entirety of 4-day first-in-the-year visit in Switzerland as the only destination country. Later in May, the Swiss President Ms. Leuthard returned the visit and officially represented Switzerland in the first “Belt and Road” Summit. This significant high-level diplomatic exchange brought about a welcome boost in the economic cooperation between the two countries, with the upgrading of FTA, the Sino-Swiss tourism year as examples. Looking at the trade figures, in the first 3 quarters of the year, Switzerland exported goods in the value of 12.3 billion Swiss francs to China including Hong Kong, a plus of 16.2% year-on-year and an all-time-high. With an absolute export growth of 1.7 billion Swiss francs year-on-year, China including Hong Kong is the most dynamic market for Swiss exporters, followed by Germany and the USA.

At Swiss Centers China, we had also an exciting year with 7 new members joining the cluster, our Tianjin centers in full operations supporting business expansion in northern China, and our team growing with fresh and bright minds upgrading our services meeting the emerging demands in trade and marketing. In 2017, we launched successfully our first executive training in Switzerland at Neuchatel, jointly with the St-Gallen University’s Institute of Management in Asia. We were also honored to partner with Swiss Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Zurich for the 1^st Chinese Market Fair, where the series of seminars facilitated the understanding of the newest digital developments in the Chinese markets, the interaction between the two economies, and also gave a deep-dive into practical aspects of doing business in China.

Looking back, we sincerely thank all our members and partners for your trust and support; Looking forward, we hope to continue working closely with you to deliver more successes in the coming year!

The Swiss Centers Shanghai and Tianjin team wish you all a merry Christmas and happy new year!

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